The Seventh Foundation Day Lecture on “Inequality of Opportunity,” was delivered by Prof Ravi Kanbur, at the Baker Auditorium CDS on October 24, 2018.
Prof Sunil Mani, Director, introduced Prof Ravi Kanpur as a very distinguished academician who is T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, International Professor of Applied Economics and Management, and Professor of Economics at Cornell University.
He went on to say that CDS is now into its 48th year and that the Annual Foundation Day is celebrated by a lecture which is usually delivered by distinguished alumni or a well-wisher of the CDS. This day is also set aside as the convocation day of the MA students. He requested Prof Kanbur to give the certificates of merit to the awardees of the Joan Robinson prize and the MG Kanbur prize along with the Degree certificates to the MA students.
This year the Joan Robinson prize for meritorious performance was awarded to Ammu Lavanya and Shubhaa Bhattacharyya, and the M.G. Kanbur Prize for meritorious performance was awarded to Himani Aggarwal and Shubhaa Bhattacharyya.
Before the commencement of the lecture, and in the context of Foundation Day, Prof. Kanbur wanted to share a letter written by Dr KN Raj to Dr Joan Robinson in the early 1970s in which he outlines his ideas of building up a centre on a ten-acre hillock in Prasanth Nagar, Trivandrum.
This was followed by the Foundation Day Lecture. An abstract of the lecture is given below:
Abstract: As income inequality has risen in many countries, an oft-heard refrain is that what is important is not inequality of outcomes but “inequality of opportunity”.But what exactly is inequality of opportunity? What are its philosophical roots and how is it to be measured? How does it apply at the national level and at the global level? What are its policy implications? This the range of questions addressed in the Foundation Day Lecture.
